Equipment repair(?) question

I'm not sure if this is the venue for this question, but here goes...

An acquaintance of mine, who knows that I've used Pentax gear and knows
that I've had an LX system for ages, brought me one (an LX) that he'd
undertaken to change out the rewind stem. Which he had removed and then
closed the back. Oops...

So I bent a paperclip such that it had a short 'L' hook on the end and
inserted it into the hole, figuring that I could catch the mechanism
that opened the back and activate it by pulling up on the paperclip. No
dice. I've got film in mine, else I'd look to see if I could discover
what is what. But not if that might mean having to tinker with my own!

I told him to leave the camera with me and that I'd ask to see if anyone
knew a magic trick to open the back. Didn't promise him any answers,
however.

So I'm asking: Any answers? Alternatively, is there a better venue for
this question?

Thanks for reading.

Longfellow

On 2009-06-22, Longfellow wrote:
I'm not sure if this is the venue for this question, but here goes...

An acquaintance of mine, who knows that I've used Pentax gear and knows
that I've had an LX system for ages, brought me one (an LX) that he'd
undertaken to change out the rewind stem. Which he had removed and then
closed the back. Oops...

Well, duhhh....

Removed rewind motor drive/winder access plug, inserted pencil,
activated back locking mechanism, called owner to "come get this
thing..." The question now arises: why was I moved to expose my own
mental sloth here in defense of this fellow to whom one should perhaps
offer a few more cows for his herd? Answer: Folk do stupid things when
under the influence of mental sloth.

NB!!! [soapboxmode=ON, curmudgeonmode=ON, oldfartmode=ON]

And then said sloth lead me to come into contact with the ongoing issue
of tool systems marketed as appliances: Is the general public supposed
to know what 0777 means (Wintel file permissions)? Nope, guess not.

It would seem that those who unfortunately lack the wit to recognize the
deadly consequences of addiction to various demand for "have Faith,
brother" also lack the wit to recognize their state of addiction in any
case. It is the usual and customary practice for a mature society to
require those who wield potentially deadly machine/weapons in public to
be licensed to do so. Addiction is not licensed, apparently by common
agreement, and so failure to recognize the clear and present danger of
unlicensed behavior on the so-called "information superhighway" is to be
expected. We're supposed to "have Faith" that our computing environment
is legally mandated to be one of trust, whatever that means.

Which means we're expected to remain ignorant of the niceties of
courteous 'puter appliance use, and so pay much bux for our Right To
Remain Ignorant (read: Right To Stupidly Inflict Pain And Suffering On
Others). Not me, folks. My machines are graced with a GNU OS, most
usually with the Linux kernel, but not always. When they are not under
the influence of one or another of the BSDs, that is.

Yep, I've got Wintel machines, but they are on the other side of the LAN
firewall, where they only see the servers robust enough to deal with
network traffic. Want to utilize Wintel software? Don't do that and
surf the net at the same time on the same machine! And damn well take
responsibility for the files you execute! Do so because otherwise you
might be a clear and present danger to some otherwise intelligent
individual who is addictedly brain-dead about these matters.

[soapboxmode=OFF, curmudgeonmode=OFF, oldfartmode=DEFAULT/ON] oh damn...

Further consequences of a now invariant oldfartmode configuration:

"Now, did I tell you about how lovely all that original K series Pentax
glass is? What? No, it doesn't auto-focus. What? What do you mean
it's "too heavy"? No, there's no self-destructing rattley plastic.
What? No, it doesn't have auto-aperture capability."

"What? No, you don't have to have any of that to be a good photographer.
I just like fine devices, that's all. So go away and stop asking stupid
question already! And stay outa the swamps, because they aren't the
only place to find valuable images. Besides, cameracide is expensive."

"Look, just go have some fun, okay? If you get something worthwhile,
we'll enjoy it with you, but just clicking shutters is a good way to
remediate your tired habit of looking without seeing. And that's worth
all the expense and effort to go image hunting in any case."

Thanks for reading. Hope you got a chuckle or two...

Longfellow